In this episode, TJ Larkin sits down with Kyra Adams, the founder of Chino Chew, a thriving local newsletter serving the Inland Empire in the suburban part of Los Angeles. Kyra shares her journey of growing a local media brand from just six family members to over 10,000 email subscribers and 10,000 Instagram followers in less than a year. She details her aggressive growth strategies, including how she used Meta Ads to acquire subscribers for as low as 18 cents each to maintain a consistent five-digit audience.

Kyra Adams dives into the technical systems that allow her to run Chino Chew sustainably while working a demanding full-time job as a scientist. She explains how she leverages Claude and Make.com to automate time-intensive tasks like scraping local event data from multiple sources and generating organized, formatted content. Kyra even shares a unique "hack" for creating Instagram carousels directly from newsletter bullets using AI, enabling her to stay present on social media with minimal manual effort.

The conversation also highlights Kyra’s success in monetizing her community through curated, high-end events such as luxury charcuterie tastings and wine nights. She discusses the strategy of going "up-market" to increase profitability and shares a brilliant "at-the-door" upselling tactic that significantly raised her average ticket price. Viewers will gain actionable insights on building efficient systems, professionalizing a side hustle early on, and using segmentation to achieve open rates as high as 57%.

Guest Contact Information: Kyra Adams can be reached fastest on Instagram @thechinochew. You can also find her on Twitter or subscribe to her newsletter at Chino Chew.

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